Bilal Philips – My Writings Deviant Groups

			Salam Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh
		

			my writings of the 80s and early 90s, actually, in the latter part of the 80s, I began to write on
topics which I felt new Muslims in particular needed to get clarity, because they were being drawn
into various called *, etc. Among them was the answer cult in America.
		

			This book dealt with a particular group, which called themselves the unsolved law in America, their
leader, claim to be a descendant of the Madea of Sudan, Mohammed Ahmed in the Sudan, and he wore
Sudanese style dress, turbans, etc. And he created a community in New York itself, it became quite
popular, they carved out a section of
		

			Brooklyn and families moved in and they took over the area, etc. They had their own stores and other
Muslim communities of New York, they accepted them
		

			to sit on the main Council of Muslims in New York,
		

			in the course of discussions of, you know, issues that relate to Muslims, etc, etc, and making plans
and all these kinds of things. But when I looked at the literature,
		

			I realized that they were far away from Islam. On the surface, they had an appearance, which was
Islamic looking. But once you got into their belief system, I started reading the papers, they had
regular papers which were being issued, you know, by their leader, they were influencing a lot of
people they're playing on issues of racial divide between blacks and whites, you know, something
like what the Elijah and movement, you know, the Nation of Islam utilize they, they use some of that
thought, but they went off into all kinds of other crazy, unacceptable beliefs, they could really
not be considered to be Muslims,
		

			though they had accumulated some bits and pieces of Islam.
		

			So I did the work, and presented it to Imam Siraj Hodge, who was one of the leading Imams of a
communities there in New York. After he read it, he realized their reality. And
		

			he then helped by distributing copies of the book, all across America as he traveled and made
lectures in various places, he left copies of the book with various communities across America, and
Alhamdulillah. Within months, within the next year, the group started to crumble. It had expanded
itself all the way down to the West Indies, you know, and it was noted for setting up these physical
communities. And many people were attracted to it, but it was spiritually fake and corrupted, their
practices were deviant. Their beliefs were distorted and Hamdulillah. The book, The answer cult in
America, which I published, was sufficient to expose them to the North American public, Muslim
		

			communities. And within some months, they folded, came up with a new name, claiming to be black
Jews, taking on new names, etc, etc. They, because they, the founder was a scam artist. He knew how
to trick people, to exploit them to take their wealth
		

			and build himself and so he kept going for a number of years.
		

			After that, I also wrote a book on the Crohn's new miracle miracle 19 books and heresy.
		

			Now Rashad Khalifa, who was the founder of this idea back in the 70s, he had written some papers,
establishing that there was a numerical miraculous
		

			formula within the Quran, which focused around 19 where Allah says I lay her to SATA Asha over it,
are 19. So he claimed this is over the Quran, the 19 is the miraculous number, you know, the numbers
of verses or the numbers of chapters or the numbers of words, I mentioned in the Quran, multiples of
19. And in all kinds of formulas that he produced, etcetera, etcetera. Actually, it was my students
who brought this to my attention. My students at monoglot Riyadh schools, they raised this to me,
actually, Ahmed Deedat, had fallen for his arguments, and had put out a book on it, you know, on
the, the miracle of 19 in the Quran. And when we looked over the, the
		

			evidence is, students had brought it to me and asked me, What do I think about this? I said, Well,
let's check it. So I assigned the students because this is early 80s, you know, computers were only
just coming
		

			into fashion to use. So these kids were already very much into
		

			computing. So I assigned them the job of checking out the claims of Rashad Khalifa. And sure enough,
it became clear after they made their calculations and counted things specifically, that he was
playing with the numbers, playing with the letters of the Quran, he was using the object dia system,
it's numerology where numbers or letters of the Quran are given numerical value. You know, this is
where 7867 86 comes from. From numerology, we're from the old alphabet abjad, how was abjad Alif BAA
Jeem. Alif is equal to one, bicycle two to Jim is equal to three and so on and so forth. And on the
basis of that,
		

			the best Mala Bismillahirrahmanirrahim according to that system, it adds up to according to that
system, as they claim, it adds up to 786. So 76 became very popular number to have it in your phone
number to have it on your house, to have it, you know, whatever people you know, would die for 786.
But it's nonsense, you know, numerology has no place in Islam, etc. In the end anyway, I mean, I
predicted that he would make greater and greater claims and surely enough, you know, as the eight is
completed themselves, he started claiming that there were some false verses in the Quran. You know,
just now people started to back off once he started to make those claims, those kinds of claims. And
		

			then next thing, you know, he claimed that he was actually a messenger of Allah, and that his
miracle was the 19 and so on and so forth. But Al Hamdulillah, by Allah's Will, he was assassinated
in the early 90s. So his immediate threat ended, but of course, people who fell for his arguments
and they kept it going for a number of years later still around, they change their names, whatever.
But Alhamdulillah I had done a book in which I expose the games that he was playing with the numbers
and the letters and, and all these kinds of things, and clarify that it was fake and so on, so on.
So of course, he was very upset and you know, he wrote things against me, etcetera. As Dr. York, the
		

			founder of the anzar did, likewise, but Alhamdulillah within a year's time, before even he was
assassinated, people backed away from him. The evidence was clear that his claims were false. So
among the other areas, you know, of deviation, deviant groups, etc, that had arisen, in that I tried
to write about for clarity for especially for new Muslims.
		

			You know, born Muslims, maybe some of these things are more obviously they spotted right away, but
for new Muslims, you know, they could easily be sucked into these different groups. You know, it was
the sheer, the shy back in the mid 80s were very active. I mean, they just came off, you know, the
late 70s With Khomeini coming back and setting up the Islamic State and these kind of things, you
know, and many people joined them, many people converted to sheis. So it needed something to be
written on them. So I did basically three books on them.
		

			One, the first one was a translation from a book called Raja doubt in my juice,
		

			and Arabic with big thick book, but personally taken a chapter out of it, somebody
		

			and translated it by a brother from Sri Lanka, translated, but the English translated was terrible.
So I took the original Arabic and retranslated it and circulated it
		

			under the title of the mirage in Iran. You know, it explained about the deviant beliefs of the Shia,
and how Muslim scholars in the earlier days treated them how they considered them, etcetera. You
know, and
		

			basically, you know, warned people about their deviation, and that there to be avoided.
		

			In terms of
		

			away, although, at the time, Khomeini was saying, we're not east, we're not West, you know, you
know, we're all one and all this, but reality was quite other than that. Another book, which I did,
which was a small book, translated comparing Khomeini's ideas to the early Shah ideas, whether in
fact, he had changed. And some people were claiming, well, no, no, he doesn't have all these other
beliefs, etc. So this book, this section of that larger book, was focused on whether Khomeini was,
in fact, renewer, who corrected up mistakes of the past and so no, no, it showed very clearly that,
in fact, he was on the same way or manage as the early Shiites, he didn't bring anything new. He
		

			didn't change their teachings, you know, he was making the same claims for the Imams that they're on
a higher level, even than the angels and the prophets, and, you know, so etc. So that book clarified
about Khomeini, so he couldn't be excluded, you know, by those who are promoting Shaivism at the
time. And then the third book was taken from a book called tell BC bliss, or the devil's deception.
		

			And I named it at the time the devil deception of the Shia, and
		

			I brought the material, which is the book was done by
		

			Imran Khan came and Josie. And
		

			I pointed out the history or clarified the history of the rise of the Shia. And this is now more
historical, to understand the Shia from their history. So again, for new Muslims, they don't have
any knowledge of the background of the Shiai and the various groups that evolved from them,
etcetera, Shiite groups, etc. They had no no knowledge about that. So my writing here was to provide
a basis for understanding the Shia will, how they arose from in the time of the Sahaba, you know,
and the claims that they made and
		

			how they deviated and what to the point where the Imams become objects of worship, where they pray
to the Imams, as Christians pray to
		

			saints, and we have amongst Muslims, Sufis who pray to saints. So, this genre of books, we're
focused on dealing with the deviant groups that threatened the proper understanding of Islam. Among
new Muslims, this is recent,
		

			printing relatively recent printing of the devil's deception. Originally, the attacker was the devil
deception of the Shia, with a lot of bookstores were not willing to
		

			to carry it so I shortened it down to just the devil's deception. But of course the devil
disruption, it deals with many, many other topics, you know the devil's deception of the Sufis,
Devil Deceptions of the scholars, there was discussions of, you know, in so many different other
aspects. But this was the dour Corner Bookstore printing of the devil's deception